Marijuana institute takes shape at HSU; third in a series of lectures Tuesday

A first-of-its-kind academic institute focused strictly on marijuana issues is taking shape at Humboldt State University this fall semester. The interdisciplinary institute, made up primarily of HSU faculty, is hosting a series of lectures that are open to the public and digging into marijuana-centric research in several academic fields.

"They finally tapped into something that's a big local concern and part of the identity here," said politics professor Jason Plume, who hosts a talk on marijuana regulatory reform Tuesday night at 5:30 p.m. in HSU's Native Forum.

The lectures have focused on hot marijuana-themed topics in our area -- the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, and the effects of cultivation on local wildlife. An October symposium gathered Humboldt County Sheriff Mike Downey, District Attorney Paul Gallegos, two county supervisors and a Fish and Game biologist to talk environmental impacts of marijuana production, and possible policy changes.

Plume will speak Tuesday night on recent marijuana legalization efforts in several states, and the regulatory structure needed for them to succeed.

Sociology professor Josh Meisel, who co-chairs the institute, said faculty members started discussing the idea -- now officially titled the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research -- in July 2010. Around that time, Meisel said, marijuana became a more publicly and academically accepted topic to research. He said there was a "culture-shift" after Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization initiative, was on the California ballot in 2010.

There are other American universities with illicit drug research institutes, Meisel said, but none solely devoted to marijuana. Eleven HSU faculty members are listed on the institute's website.

"Across the county, there was the tendency to ignore the 'green elephant' in the room," Meisel said. "People across the spectrum became concerned after Proposition 19."

Meisel said he and other university faculty saw something lacking from the discussions surrounding legalization.

"With these public discussions, there were a lot more questions than there were answers," he said, which motivated some HSU faculty like himself to go after the topic in an academic context -- not one steeped in "conjecture" and "wild claims."

Erick Eschker, an HSU economics professor and the institute's other co-chair, said he received calls from the media and the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, asking him about the effects of legalization on the economy when Proposition 19 hit the ballot.

"Then it hit me that this just isn't a local issue," said Eschker, who is in the process of gathering and studying marijuana production data in the county, and working to show its correlation with local employment.

Eschker said the institute is not about advocacy. It's a place where top-notch research is done, he said, and a place people can go to get their marijuana questions answered. And people are beginning to hear of it. Eschker said he's received a call from New York Magazine and several researchers from around the country.

"The stigma for marijuana research is pretty much lifted," said Anthony Silvaggio, a sociology professor who is studying the environmental effects of marijuana cultivation, both indoors and outdoors. He's interviewed growers to find out about their practices and pesticides they use, and is working to collect data on pesticides and fertilizers found at marijuana grows.

He and a graduate student recently compiled a video tour of 600 outdoor grow sites around Humboldt County using Google imagery to show the scope of the environmental marijuana problem. Silvaggio said he hopes the institute will help him get more funding for the research, something he says has been hard to come by in the past.

Meisel said despite the institute's all-academic focus, he doesn't want to shy away from the Humboldt County "pot" identity.

"Instead of distance ourselves from that identity, why don't we own that in a proactive way and define the terms?" he asked.

He said the institute is still working to get the word out about its existence. It's not a household name yet -- Meisel didn't get calls from national media after legalization was recently passed in Colorado and Washington, for example.

The focus is on the speaker series to get the word out, and pursuing research funding opportunities. The institute is also working to create a special section of the HSU library devoted to marijuana.

"Our goal is to try and aid some more informed policy-level decisions," Meisel said.

Plume's lecture Tuesday night will be the third in a series of seven marijuana lectures being held at HSU this year. The next four will touch on topics ranging from Dutch drug policy to the impacts of legalization on the local economy.

Plume has been researching recent marijuana movements, including the successful legalization efforts in Washington and Colorado, and an unsuccessful proposition in Oregon. He interviewed campaign directors of legalization efforts in the three states and Arcata Vice Mayor Shane Brinton about Measure I -- the electricity grow tax -- for his research.

In his lecture Tuesday, he said he plans to discuss marijuana reform, advocacy and the regulatory structure that needs to be in place before legalization efforts can succeed. Both Washington and Colorado were prepared, he said, with a committee and structures already in place that could craft a regulatory scheme for marijuana. He said Oregon had less of a plan in place, and it was somewhat fitting that legalization did not pass there.

Plume said the institute's formation signals a recent acceptance of marijuana as a legitimate area of study. When he started his Ph.D. dissertation at Syracuse University, entitled "Cultivating Reform: Nixon's Illicit Substance Control Legacy, Medical Marijuana Social Movement Organizations, and Venue Shopping," it was hard to get people on board. That was in 2008, and he said that skeptical sentiment toward his marijuana research continued into 2010.

Plume said he is now in a place receptive to his research, and he thinks it may have played a part in his being hired at HSU prior to this semester. The institute is still putting together the "nuts and bolts," he said, and trying to find cohesiveness.

Eventually, Eschker said, he'd like to host a big marijuana-themed conference for national and international marijuana researchers.

"If anyone is going to have a marijuana institute, it really should be Humboldt State," he said. "It has the potential to be a world-class institute, and we're just getting going."